A-Packets vs NETCAP
A-Packets
apackets.com
NETCAP
netcap.ioSide by side
| Figure | A-Packets | NETCAP |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $8.25/mo | €49/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 20 | 3 |
| Spec score · Network Packet Analyzer Software | 9.4 (#1) | 9.2 (#2) |
| Spec score · Network Protocol Analyzers | 9.4 (#1) | 9.1 (#2) |
| API | The automation API supports PCAP upload, scheduled analysis and integrations; the REST upload endpoint uses a Bearer API key. | The project exposes a Go Writer API for writing Protocol Buffer and CSV audit records, including headers and buffered channels. |
| Integrations | OnPrem supports local passkey two-factor authentication, LDAP/Active Directory, SAML 2.0, OAuth through Google, Microsoft, and GitHub, and SCIM provisioning. | Pro lists handoffs or integrations with Wireshark, Metasploit, hashcat, John, and BetterCrack; Core includes a Maltego transformation plugin. |
| Purpose | A-Packets analyzes PCAP and PCAPNG captures for incident response, forensics, and protocol inspection. | NETCAP converts network packet streams into structured audit records for network analysis, security research, machine learning, and forensics. |
| Self-hosting | OnPrem is delivered through Docker Compose, Kubernetes/Helm or a signed air-gapped bundle. | Core can be built from source, installed as precompiled binaries, or run from Alpine and Ubuntu Docker images. |
| Support | OnPrem inquiries normally begin with a 30-minute fit call, and the maker says it replies to requests within two business days. | Pro includes email support, Enterprise offers priority support with an SLA, and Core lists community support. |
| System requirements | The Docker Compose deployment requires Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or RHEL 8+, Docker Engine 24+, at least 8 GB RAM and 80 GB free disk. | Current downloads list macOS 14 or newer for Apple Silicon and Intel, Windows 10/11 64-bit, and Debian or Ubuntu amd64. |
| What it does | A-Packets analyzes PCAP and PCAPNG captures for incident response, forensics and protocol inspection. | NETCAP converts live network traffic or PCAP files into structured, type-safe audit records for security research, forensics, monitoring and machine-learning workflows. |
Plans
A-Packets
- Public analysisFree
- Public analysisFree
- Starter Workspace$11.99 a month
- Starter Workspace (monthly)$11.99 a month
- Starter Pack$14.99, paid once
- Starter Pack$14.99, paid once
- Professional$24.99 a month
- Professional (monthly)$24.99 a month
- Standard Pack$44.99, paid once
- Standard Pack$44.99, paid once
In their own words
A-Packets
A-Packets analyzes PCAP and PCAPNG captures for incident response, forensics and protocol inspection. It reconstructs HTTP sessions, maps communicating hosts and services, examines wireless artifacts, extracts files, identifies credential exposure and flags suspicious events. The hosted analyzer accepts native capture files from tools such as Wireshark and tcpdump. Public analysis costs nothing, requires no signup and accepts uploads up to 25 MB, but the resulting page is public. Private workspace plans include reports and a REST API key: Starter Workspace (monthly) is $11.99 a month, Professional (monthly) is $24.99 a month, and Advanced (monthly) is $49.99 a month. Yearly workspaces are $99 a year, $199 a year and $399 a year, respectively. One-time packs cost $14.99 as a one-time purchase, $44.99, paid once or $99.99, paid once. Subscription analyses have permanent private storage; credit-pack reports are deleted after 30 days. OnPrem supports customer-controlled storage and air-gapped deployments, but analyzes captures case by case and does not decrypt TLS payloads, capture continuously or alert.
NETCAP
NETCAP converts network packet streams into structured audit records for network analysis, security research, machine learning and forensics. Its free Core edition covers 66+ record types for protocols including TCP, UDP, HTTP, TLS, DNS and DHCP. Core captures live traffic, processes PCAP files, supports distributed collection and HTTP proxy capture, and outputs Protocol Buffers, CSV, JSON streams and Prometheus metrics. It is an open-source CLI under GPL-3.0, with platform binaries and Docker images.
Pro adds interactive graph analysis, a network activity timeline, investigation notes and more than 35 analysis modules. It can flag anomalies in decoded traffic and draft incident reports for editing; the maker says Pro analyzes captures locally without an upload step. Pro is available for macOS, Windows and Linux and includes email support. The plan is listed at $548 a month, with a €48/year option also shown, and a 14-day trial without a credit card. Enterprise has custom pricing and includes unlimited team seats, priority support with an SLA, custom integrations and volume licensing.